Posts Tagged ‘Sonya Noskowiak’

The Steerage, 1921, by Alfred Stieglitz. More than his signature photograph, it is also considered one of the most important images of the 20th Century because it helped to transform photography and change the perception of what was considered fine art. It is also one of the earliest and best examples of "straight photography" as defined by Alfred Stieglitz. Public Domain Image.

Note: Future blog posts will expand on this overview and delve into Pictorialism, documentary, straight photography and especially Group f.64 and the west coast tradition.

In August, 1921, a little known but classically trained painter and furniture maker, Paul Leland Hyde and his wife Jessie Clemens Hyde of Howard Street in San Francisco, gave birth to their third child, a boy they named Philip Jean Hyde. The year proved auspicious for fine art photography, but not for wilderness, at least not until the boy grew up.

The twentieth century’s biggest threats to wilderness and the National Park System began in 1921 when seven western states formed the Colorado River Commission, U. S. Geological Survey teams made studies of Glen Canyon, Cataract Canyon, Grand Canyon and the San Juan River Canyon and Hydrologists proposed the first dam site on the Colorado River.

Meanwhile photography thrived and took leaps forward thanks to an outspoken New York City proponent, the father of fine art photography, Alfred Stieglitz. In February 1921, Alfred Stieglitz sent shock waves through the art world by exhibiting a mixture of nude and clothed depictions of his lover, the rising painter Georgia O’Keeffe. The buzz created by the scandal and success of the show made the young Georgia O’Keeffe famous and solidified Alfred Stieglitz’ place in history both in America and Europe. Philip Hyde never met Alfred Stieglitz, but Alfred Stieglitz would indirectly impact Philip Hyde’s photography and that of all landscape photography. Alfred Stieglitz through his association with Paul Strand and Ansel Adams, influenced the west coast tradition of photography that was also born in the San Francisco Bay Area, as Philip Hyde grew up.

In 1932, an election year, Franklin D. Roosevelt ran against Herbert Hoover, whose popularity plummeted in the wake of the stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression. Roosevelt campaigned on the promise of his New Deal. He said its many programs and projects would reverse the economic collapse. In late 1932, even before Roosevelt took office his advisors started framing programs and began to employ photographers to add life to their reports. The nearly 100-year-old medium of photography conveyed the need for each program more memorably and dynamically than solely written documents. The photography originally used by government organizations such as the Farm Security Administration or FSA in the Great Depression came to be known as documentary photography and was characterized by crisp, sharp and unadorned images.

In previous decades photographers who wanted their work to be considered art, had been moving away from the plain representation of documentation. They experimented with soft focus and print manipulation in many forms including the changing of tone by various methods and printing on cotton and a variety of other art papers. These painterly forms came to be called Pictorialism and dictated what sold in galleries in New York City and the museums and art markets of the Eastern US until 1930 and beyond.

A few photographers bucked this trend, but none successfully until Alfred Stieglitz. Alfred Stieglitz produced a magazine called Camera Work in which he eventually began to encourage “Straight Photography.” When Alfred Stieglitz originally started a society he called Photo-Secession, he was still practicing many of the techniques of pictorialism, but in time he began to take the view that photography was an art form, in and of itself, and did not need to imitate other art forms to warrant public appreciation. He coined the term Straight Photography to refer to images that were sharp and printed just as they were captured by the camera on glossy non-painterly papers that brought out detail. One of the photographers Alfred Stieglitz featured in Camera Work was Paul Strand of Chicago, whose work was stark, simple and straightforward, yet possessed creative depth.

In 1930, a young pianist and photographer named Ansel Adams traveled to New Mexico to finish a book he had started on the Taos Pueblo. No rooms were available at Los Gallos Inn but the Innkeeper introduced Ansel Adams to Becky and Paul Strand who invited Ansel Adams to stay in an extra bedroom of their adobe guest cottage. Ansel Adams knew of Paul Strand from reading Camera Work and was delighted when Paul Strand offered to show him his negatives since he had no prints on hand. Ansel Adams described the negatives as “glorious… with perfect, uncluttered edges and beautifully distributed shapes that he had carefully selected and interpreted as forms—simple, yet of great power.” Ansel Adams was so inspired that he decided that afternoon, “the camera, not the piano, would shape my destiny.”

In 1932, a group of West Coast photographers met informally at photographer Willard Van Dyke’s home in Berkeley, California. Van Dyke’s guests Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, Henry Swift, Sonya Noskowiak, John Paul Edwards and Ansel Adams found they were on a similar journey. When Ansel Adams described his new direction in photography inspired by Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, he discovered that the others were already at work on this new approach. All present agreed to pursue what they would call “pure photography” and work to reverse the trend of art photography toward Pictorialism. At a subsequent meeting they agreed to call themselves Group f.64, after the smallest aperture or lens opening setting that allowed for the greatest sharpness and depth. Later after World War II, Philip Hyde would study under three of the members of this group that redefined photography, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham.

Which photographers or influences inspired your interest in photography?

Philip Hyde with Edward Weston at Wildcat Hill, Carmel, California, 1948, by Al Richter, CSFA classmate of Philip Hyde. Edward Weston, who many consider "the most influential photographer of the 20th Century," lived a simple lifestyle and rarely manipulated his images in the darkroom. He produced mainly contact prints. He is listed as one of Ansel Adam's influences and credited with leading the development of Straight Photography on the West Coast.

Edward And Brett Weston In Mexico

Pioneer abstract and landscape photographer Brett Weston was the son of Edward Weston, who many say was one of the greatest photographers to ever live. However, what most people do not know is that of the subjects both men photographed, Brett Weston did many of them first.

Chandler, Brett Weston’s older brother, wrote to Brett at home in California, while Chandler visited Edward Weston in Mexico. Chandler told Brett Weston they were having a glorious adventure south of the border. Under his dad’s lax or non-existent supervision, Chandler Weston was drinking and playing with guns and having a wild time. Brett Weston kept pressing his father to have his turn in Mexico. Finally after Brett Weston had a few run-ins with the police in California, Edward Weston gave in and the boys traded places in 1925 when Brett was 14 years old.

While in Mexico, Brett Weston made his first photographs that were more than snapshots. He printed with his dad and whiled away the days. Family photographs show the Westons relaxing with Diego Rivera and other artists. After 15 months in Mexico, Brett Weston returned to the U.S. and made his first abstract photograph, “Drive Shaft, Locomotive.”

Edward Weston Is Known For Some Subjects Brett Weston Photographed First

“People look at Edward’s photographs and say, ‘Oh Edward did the locomotive, so Brett did the locomotive,’” said Jon Burris, Director of the Brett Weston Archive. “But the fact is that Brett made his in 1927, and Edward did not make his until 1941. Sonya Noskowiak, who was an assistant of Edward’s—and who became a member of the Group f.64 (with Edward Weston)—made a similar image in 1937. But Brett was the first—and he made his when he was just 16 years old.”

Some of Edward Weston’s most acclaimed photographs of his last wife, model Charis Wilson, who passed on in November 2009 at age 95, were made in the Oceano sand dunes. Edward Weston’s photographs of sand dunes are “so prominent in the history of Twentieth Century photography, that most people believe he made them first and that Brett followed,” Burris said. “But that’s not the case. Brett began to photograph the dunes in 1932—two years before his father.”

Brett Weston also photographed a series of four surf scenes in 1939, looking down from the cliffs above Baker Beach in San Francisco. “Edward had photographed similar scenes a year or so earlier on the coast, north of San Francisco,” Scott Nichols said while talking to Black and White Magazine about his collection, the world’s largest of Brett Weston’s prints and portfolios. “Then Ansel Adams had done his famous surf series in 1940,” Scott Nichols said. “Brett’s predates Ansel’s by about a year.”

Brett Weston Influenced Edward Weston Who Inspired Philip Hyde

Many people see my father landscape photographer Philip Hyde’s cactus photographs and images of trees in Glen Canyon and suggest he was influenced by Brett Weston. This may be, but Dad saw little of Brett Weston’s work before he made his own cactus images and river trips through Glen Canyon with David Brower and the Sierra Club. Dad did make photographs that exhibit Edward Weston’s influence because he and his California School of Fine Arts classmates photographed with Edward Weston on Point Lobos on a number of occasions in 1948 and 1949. Dad and his classmates also visited Edward Weston at his home on Wildcat Hill in Carmel, California where they may have seen some Brett Weston photographs. Future blog posts will detail visits to Wildcat Hill and how Dad and several others from the class, camped in tents on Edward Weston’s lawn. Edward Weston reviewed student prints and showed his own. The print viewings often led to lively discussions. For more on Edward Weston see the blog post, “Edward Weston’s Landscape Philosophy Part 1.”

Edward Weston is said to have impacted all of photography. However, with the knowledge that Brett Weston preceded his father to various locations and subject matter, it has become accepted that not only did father influence son, but son also influenced father. Edward Weston on several occasions suggested as much. Brett Weston, through his father, Edward Weston, indirectly impacted Philip Hyde’s photography, and made an even larger contribution to the entire medium than is commonly known. For the story on how Brett Weston impacted Philip Hyde and his travels by selling him his Chevy Pickup see the blog post, “Covered Wagon Journal 1.”